SMOKING IN PRIVATE VEHICLES (Prohibition)

Dr Koh Lam Son asked the Minister for the Environment whether he will consider prohibiting smoking in private vehicles on the road.

The Acting Minister for the Environment (Mr Wong Kan Seng): Mr Speaker, Sir, current laws on the prohibition of smoking are confined only to places where the general public ordinarily have access to. They do not apply to private places. This being the case, we cannot prohibit smoking in private vehicles on the road. However, smoking in public vehicles, such as buses, taxis and MRT trains, is prohibited.

The Ministry of the Environment is reviewing the existing laws so that prohibition can be applied to places such as private offices and clubs in order that a greater segment of the public can be safeguarded against the harmful effects of side-stream smoke.

Meanwhile, the Ministry will encourage owners of private vehicles and managements of private offices and clubs to introduce their own house rules to prohibit smoking in these places.

Dr Koh Lam Son (Telok Blangah): Sir, would the Minister not agree that private vehicles are used on public roads and therefore cigarette smoking by drivers poses a proble, of health hazard, littering and safety to other road users? This is not quite a matter of smoking in private places.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: Sir, while the vehicle is used on the public road it does not follow that a private vehicle on a public road can be subject to the Smoking (Prohibition in Certain Places) Act. We cannot use that particular law to stop him from littering or to preserve road safety or to ensure that the roads are safe. There are other laws to do this, for example, the anti-littering law and the Road Traffic Act can be used to make sure that people do not litter or that the roads are used safely.

I can sympathise with the passengers who are subject to side-stream smoke. I think it is for them to use their persuasion and peer and social pressure on the smoker in the vehicle. I think that is the only recourse that the passenger would have in persuading his friend or whoever in the vehicle not to smoke. We cannot use a particular law to stop the passengers in a private vehicle from smoking.

But the Ministry of the Environment keeps a constant look-out for people who litter from their vehicles and I can report that in 1989 a total of 576 persons were apprehended and eventually prosecuted for littering from moving vehicles and 80% of these people threw cigarette butts out of their vehicles.

The following Questions stood on the Order Paper -